Pup wrote:If you want to check out the possibilities of this kind of service, then I'd take a look at MLB.tv, which is frightfully expensive but extremely well implemented.

I don't see that working for F1. MLB.tv is subject to the same blackout restrictions that apply to television and radio; access to the "local team" is still restricted to whoever owns the television and radio rights within that market. And for all intents and purposes, the "local team" in F1 broadcast deals is F1 itself.

I can't envision a scenario whereby a broadcast network that's paid through the nose to acquire the F1 rights for its market would then allow for that agreement to be non-exclusive and open itself to competition. Nor can I envision FOM settling for the fees associated with non-exclusive agreements when the fees for exclusive agreements are much, much higher.

Under the current economic model, the most I can see coming from this Tata deal is a supply of content that complements traditional F1 coverage, but does not replace it.

One way around existing contracts and a way forward for new would be to negotiate a revenue sharing deal. That is, FOM will know the location of all its subscribers and can therefore pay a percentage of the subscription fee to the corresponding broadcaster.

And of course, if the initiative is successful enough, then Bernie can always just thumb his nose and not have a broadcast deal for that area.

Actually, immediately after I posted that it dawned on me that FOM will likely include access to Tata content, for lack of a better term, as just another part of traditional broadcast rights agreements. And for more money, too.

Pup wrote:Don't get me started on MLB's blackout policy.

I'm right there with you. And with all blackout policies.

By and large, local taxpayers build the stadiums, and then locals are expected to pay, one way or another, for access to the product they themselves financed? Please.

richard_leeds wrote:Sounds like deal for back of house infrastructure rather than a service to consumers.

It does put in place the infrastructure for internet TV in future years, but if you're in a country with an exclusive broadcaster (such as Sky) then the feed would be blocked.

That may have been one of the reasons Bernie was afraid of the web, will people across the world pay the same, audiences would vary greatly by income.

Currently if a company like Sky blocks content it is easy to setup a remote IP if you know what to do that will defeat blocks. Content over the net is very difficult to manage just based on the amount of data.

From what I have heard the BBC only distributes some content online free in the UK, pity I am in the US and am unable to see that

richard_leeds wrote:Sounds like deal for back of house infrastructure rather than a service to consumers.

It does put in place the infrastructure for internet TV in future years, but if you're in a country with an exclusive broadcaster (such as Sky) then the feed would be blocked.

That may have been one of the reasons Bernie was afraid of the web, will people across the world pay the same, audiences would vary greatly by income.

Currently if a company like Sky blocks content it is easy to setup a remote IP if you know what to do that will defeat blocks. Content over the net is very difficult to manage just based on the amount of data.

From what I have heard the BBC only distributes some content online free in the UK, pity I am in the US and am unable to see that

I think you are talking about routing video streams through a remote proxy to overcome regional restrictions. It used to be very difficult to find a good free proxy that allow higher bandwidths from streaming video's. Its probably easier now.

If you have the bandwidth, streaming video is quite easy all you need is a good application, you can use an open source tool like Videolan.org(VLC player) its been around for donkey years and its quite reliable. Give your friend the link/ ip address and you got some facetime on your PC.I have even seen Formula one teams using Video Lan to stream weather video feeds to the pit lane.

Last edited by dice782 on Mon Feb 27, 2012 9:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

richard_leeds wrote:It is possible using legal means such as Slingbox.

VLC is perfectly legal , what makes things illegal is if people start streaming copyrighted video.Streaming video is nothing complicated, but what makes it difficult is streaming Live video reliably in HD to multiple viewers (Multicast).That demands loads of bandwidth and network hardware. Thats probably what TATA are going to provide.VLC is useful if you want to stream video from your TV/PC to a laptop or tablet PC same like Slingbox.